On Mar 16, 9:00 pm, SMS <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 14, 9:05 pm, Andre Jute <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > 3. Forget a dynopowered rear light of any kind. Even the best are
> > dangerous to your health. The expensive BUMM ones are not watertight
> > and the best of the rest, made by Basta (I have one they custom make
> > for Gazelle but it is basically just an aesthetic variation of their
> > best rear lamp) and by Spanninga (their Ultra; I have that one as
> > well) are merely better waterproofed, not more illuminative. I keep
> > them on my bikes simply because they came with the bikes. Even the
> > best of the dynodriven rear lights are little glimmers that you can
> > barely see across the street. None of the dyno-driven rear lights
> > flash, because it is streng verboten to have flashing lights in
> > Germany and The Netherlands, their prime markets.
>
> Good advice. I had some long discussions with Dutch manufacturers at
> the show about their products (and their lack of exporting to the
> U.S.), and especially about lighting. I was very suprised to see some
> new higher end Dutch commuter bikes with no dynamos at all, hub or
> rim. They told me that there is a trend even in the Netherlands toward
> battery powered lights at the mid-range for two reasons. First, the
> rim dynamos are too unreliable in terms of wiring and in terms of
> being damaged when the bicycles are parked, but the hub dynamos are
> too expensive except at the very high end. Second, the lights are only
> useful as "being seen" lamps at the relatively slow speeds on the
> cycle paths.
That's a retrograde step. Both my Dutch bicycles have dynamo-driven
front lights and battery rear lights, a very common arrangement at the
high end, the reason being the problem (aesthetics, reliability) of
wiring a dynamo-driven light at the back. But conceptually, once you
accept that the dynamo lights are being-seen lights, or seeing lights
only in undemanding situations, and that for any demanding use
(including by people with a true value of their own lives) such lights
must be supplemented by battery lights, it makes sense to have dyno-
drive lights front *and* back as backups in case the batteries run
out. I'm sure that if they put their minds to it the bike makers or
lamp makers could solve the problem right pronto. (However, I notice
that Shimano is no longer supplying either the front lamp they used to
list, nor the switch they used to list for dynohubs; I wonder if the
glow has gone off the dynohub market for Shimano.)
> > 4. Get a battery rear light. If you're rich, get a Dinotte rear light
> > (ask Jay; he has one), if not a Cateye TL-LD1100, which is pricey
> > enough. There is only one other taillight that is good enough for your
> > life and that's the Trek Disco Inferno, which is no longer made. The
> > Dinotte and the Cateye 1100 are *bright*, they cast very substantial
> > light to the sides as well as the rear, and they flash. Those are the
> > minimum requirements for good taillights, and they are the only ones
> > who truly meet them. The Cateye 1100 is bright enough to be seen in
> > bright sunlight; I use it as a daylight running lamp. It is supposed
> > to last 200 hours on a set of 2 AA batteries; I don't know how long
> > the batteries last in hours because I use rechargeables and swap them
> > out every three or four months or so.
>
> Other than folding bicycles, there were probably more new attempts at
> LED lights than any other product at the show, including several LED
> brake lights and turn signal lights, including some with wireless
> transmitters from a switch on the bars But in all the show, the best
> rear light remained the CatEye 1100. DiNotte was not at the show.
>
> There actually is a decent tail light from Blackburn (in terms of
> brightness and angle of view) but it suffers from using AAA batteries.
That makes all of *three* generally available good tail lights... A
shameful situation, I think.
There's also a rather ugly front light from Blackburn that I might us
as a front flasher. But first I want to look into making something
like the BUMM Fly IQ flash, so it can run off the dynohub and be there
in cast I want to use it in steady mode. I'm also wondering if I can
make the Cateye 1100 work off the dynohub for the rear.
> > 7. Or you might want to considering overvolting a single halogen lamp:
> > you get far more light and you won't blow a Philips MR16 or MR11
> > longlife unit --anyway, what do you care if you reduce a 3000 mtbf
> > lamp to 1500 hours of life if you get nearly twice as much light? The
> > trick is that you must be able to get them in the 6V versions to work
> > with your dynohub, and the 6V MR16 or MR11 are not easy to find, at
> > least not where I live.
>
> Yeah, the poor man's HID system! Have you tried a 5W 6V MR16 on a 3W
> dynohub?
>
> "http://www.bulbtown.com/5W_6V_MR16_WITH_LENSE_GX5_3_BASE_p/43243.htm"
Thanks for the link. They don't deliver to Europe though. The reason I
haven't tried 6V MR16 is that I can't find any locally or deliverable
for a reasonable price, and in fact have several perfectly good (of
their kind, for their purpose) 6V dyno front lights made by Basta,
Spanninga and BUMM.
> > 8. Or, in LEDs, you can fit as many low consumption LEDs as you can
> > power. Each LED drops y volts, so the total must add up to what your
> > dynohub produces or must be regulated. You might want to look into
> > buckpucks to get the voltage right. Frankly, I wouldn't mess with LEDs
> > unless I could get the latest and the best, together with some means
> > of focusing the light correctly, and were also willing to sacrifice an
> > existing set of lights with hefty, preferably cast ali, shells for
> > cooling the LEDs. I looked into LEDs and decided that BUMM's Fly IQ
> > (at the expensive end of their range, which is generally overpriced)
> > would probably in the end cost less than messing around trying to make
> > my own.
>
> I was surprised to see so few LED based dynamo lights at the show,
> because I incorrectly assumed that you could drive something like a
> 3W Cree LED from a dynamo hub. You can't.
No free lunch? I assume it consumes too much current.
> Most of the dynamo LED based
> lights were three lower wattage LEDs, and not focused or collimated
> all that well. Plus no manufacturer is apparantly willing to spend big
> bucks on the bins of the Cree LED that are the most efficient.
>
> The best LED headlamp appears to still be the SolidLight's 1203D.
That's *very* expensive, Steven. I looked into the SolidLight and was
tempted, but it will be outmoded before I've even run it in, and then
my money will be wasted.
> Interestingly, tthey don't mention the LED type anywhere, nor the
Luxeon 3W from a select bin, I imagine.
> > 9. If you're cheap or poor, consider this. Plenty of RBT dickswingers
> > will now weight in with how fabulous their BUMM Fly IQ is; I have one
> > too and it is a good light. However. A couple of halogen 2.4W lamps --
> > because that is what I had at the time of the test; 2x 3W lights would
> > do better still -- made as much light as the Fly at any speed over a
> > crawl and could be better arranged because the two lamps had different
> > spreads.
>
> There is a mistaken belief by many that an LED based light is
> necessarily more efficient than a filament based lamp. This is untrue
> for higher power lights. The measures taken to dissipate the heat from
> a high power LED lamp are quite incredible. Plus an LED llamp is much
> harder to lens properly. There are advantages, such as the longer life
> of the LED compared to the filament based bulb, especially in a harsh
> environment. You keep hearing how LEDs will soon catch up with HID in
> terms of efficiency, and this may happen but it's not going to be
> cheap. The LED manufacturers already charge a big premium for the
> their most efficient product bins, and you see Cree based lights
> specifying which bin the LEDs come from.
>
> > 10. Lights are the last bicycle frontier. We hear a lot of talk from
> > the technofreakies about how dynamo lights are now so much better than
> > they were. But better isn't automatically good enough. The best dyno
> > front light is still only nearly as good as a 10W MR11 battery light
> > -- whereas I don't feel comfortable on any aspect of lighting (being
> > seen, having my space respected, seeing) with anything less than about
> > 25W divided between two lamps. YMMV, of course.
>
> Personally I find MR11 based lamps a waste, because the larger
> reflector of the MR16 is much more efficient. In fact the sealed beam
> 12 volt lamps are becoming one of my favorite halogen lamps because of
> the large reflector, light weight, and the lack of a need to build any
> funky enclosure.
I looked into those garden lighting decorator types of sealed beams
you recommend but again it was a supply problem.
> > 11. In summary: I recommend the Cateye TL-LD1100 battery rear light,
> > and two cheap BUMM halogen lights driven off the dynamo at the front
> > with a homemade switch, supplemented in case of regular commuting or
> > any strenuous riding circumstances by a rechargeable battery front
> > light set .
>
> Good advice. I'm finding that for many short, slow rides to the store
> that the dynamo lights are sufficient. It's for commuting, especially
> at relatively high speed, that the higher power lights are necessary
> for optimal safety.
I really hoped that a hub dynamo would be so much better than sidewall
dynamos but it is not so: the light output in my kinds of mild use is
no higher. The truth is that a hub dynamo with even the best lamps
designed for it doesn't make adequate light for any of my nighttime
rides -- I might turn from the shop across the unlit graveyard, or
from a garage which sometimes has a veteran car into the rough tracks
on the estate of a friend, and in both places the spread of light
from dynohub lights, and the difficulty of starting up again after you
stop, make the ride into an unnecessarily stressful adventure.
> > 13. Good strong lights are useful in daylight too. The flashing Cateye
> > 1100 persuades a lot of people to slow behind me and to give me a
> > wider berth than they did before I fitted that light.
>
> Try a Flash Flag. See "http://www.flashback.ca/bicycle.html". You can
> probably make something similar. I use these on most of our fleet of
> bikes, but I'm working on something better. I don't like the lack of a
> good breakaway mechanism. Some sort of replaceable, cheap mechanism is
> needed. I was hoping to see something similar to the Flash Flag at the
> bike show, but there was nothing.
I think the Cateye 1100 at last does the business, even in daylight;
if Cateye's next model is as much of an improvement over the 1100 as
the 1100 was over the 1000, I will buy that one too. A guy with a 1000
was passing in the winter here at dusk, very poor visibility. He
immediately noticed my 1100 was stronger. We fitted fresh batteries
from my bulk pack, parked the bikes on the hard shoulder with the
lights flashing and walked back. The 1100 was visible for more than an
additional 150 paces, at which point a curve in the road intervened.
This fellow, a Brit, had thought the 1000 a revelation, very good
indeed on cycling hols he takes all over the world every few weeks
when he can get a cheap flight, but he said he would buy the 1100 next
time he was in a shop. He was the one that pointed out to me that the
key is that the bike lights should still be noticeable under street
lights and in traffic; that a test in pitch dark is an engineering
test but useless as a utility test. My Spanninga Ultra, highly thought
of in The Netherlands, recommended in a Fietserbond test, was on the
same bike as the Cateye 1100 and didn't pass our impromptu test.
Andre Jute
I wouldn't want to be on even a cager's conscience